Artist Statement 

My work is an ongoing question: how to build a common world when the one we inhabit I oppose. The Anonymous Citizen series aims to challenge the idea of naming, exploring ideas of “we” versus the individual. I am constantly investigating the use of color as if it were a machine exploring human rights within color theory and the portrait. The focus is on the relationships of colors versus color in isolation, which can be seen as a metaphor for imperialism when understood as a system not an event. Being anonymous strips away all individual privileges while simultaneously giving space for personal and community empowerment.

Escaping the confines of one reality and entering an alternate reality is often where I find meaning within the complexity of the mind and the emotions it houses. I intersect working from observation with exploring internal spaces like memory, tracings and narratives of painting. The poetic interiority of my work aims for generative conversation within the viewing experience.

Biography
Renée Bouchard has been awarded the Pollock-Krasner, Puffin, Vermont Individual Artist, and the Robert Rauschenberg Power of Art grant. Her recent exhibitions include, “Painting at Night” at Opalka Gallery in Albany, NY and “Down the Rabbit Hole” at Lights Out Gallery in Norway, ME. She has been an artist-in-residence at Artspace New Haven, the Vermont Studio Center, the Cooper Union and the Kate Millett Art Colony for Women. She is currently an artist-in-residence at Collar Works 50 4th Street in Troy, NY.

P.O Box 4012 Bennington VT 05201